Generally speaking, solar energy installations come in two flavors: small- and medium-scale systems that are installed atop roofs and in empty lots (broadly referred to a “distributed generation”); and large, utility-scale solar power plants that sit on acres and acres of land.

A common critique of distributed generation is that, thanks to trees and other obstructions, not every roof is good for solar panels; a common critique of utility solar is that the plants take up lots of land and can disrupt surrounding habitats.

Case in point vis-à-vis the latter: a new assessment released Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management …click here to read more

The Ivanpah solar power plant is a work in progress along a stretch of California desert just west of the Nevada border.

Earlier this week, Google announced it will invest $168 million in the 370-megawatt (MW) project, which relies on solar thermal technology that’s sometimes informally called the “power tower” (pictured left). This announcement comes after the Internet search company last week made known its $5 million investment in a Germany-based solar energy facility.

Unlike photovoltaic (PV) systems, which convert the sun’s rays directly into electricity, …click here to read more

While the California officials have been working overtime to approve solar power plants in time to meet a statewide renewable energy goal, its utility companies are faced with a slightly different task: How do we incorporate all of that renewable energy it our electric grid?

Southern California Edison (SCE) — one of the state’s three main investor owned utility companies (IOUs) — outlined its plan to build a smarter, more secure grid with more renewable energy flowing through it. By 2020, SCE hopes to have one-third of its grid power coming from wind, solar and othe renewable energy sources.

Many expect energy storage to play a key role in the future smart grid. Generally speaking, because solar and wind are intermittent sources of power, the resulting energy either needs to be consumed or stored. As energy storage technologies improve and become more efficient, utilities will have more flexibility in how they dispatch power across the grid. Other measures include installing smart devices that enable individuals and businesses to monitor their energy use.

None of it will be easy. Executive Director of the the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies (CEERT) V. John White used a pretty accurate analogy when describing the process at the fourth annual VerdeXchange in Los Angeles:

“It’s like building a symphony orchestra. We’re going to have lots of different instruments. The [challenge] is to harmonize them.”

According to SCE Engineer Mike Montoya’s smart grid outline, the process will take 20+ years to fully complete. That figure could change based on the pace of developments in green technology. But it’s clear that if California, or any other part of the world, is to realize a clean energy future, we’re going to have to invest some serious money and time.

We hear it all the time: “A new solar energy plant has been built.” Or, “A local utility company has entered into a solar power purchase agreement.” Even, “More solar energy will be added to the electric grid.” But the bottom line is, how does any of this affect how much you’re going to have to pay for solar energy?

First off, it won’t affect the price of installing a solar energy system. Whether you own a home or business, a utility company buying solar power is completely independent from you installing a system yourself. But utility-scale solar projects can create the opportunity to purchase clean energy from your utility.

If you’ve opened and examined a utility bill in the last, say, ten years, you may have noticed an option to pay a little more money on top of your utility bill each month for green power.Depending on where you live, the purchase option may be called “green tags.” This is where these new solar energy plants — and other renewable energy projects — come in to play. If you opt for the green power purchase option, your utility company will charge you a bit more for your electricity. Clean sources of electricity, like wind and solar, are a bit pricier than conventional sources, like coal, after all.

Tucson Electric Power (TEP) in Arizona is taking its green purchase option a step further. The utility recently built a new solar array and is selling its power to customers in blocks of 150 kilowatt-hours (kWh). The utility adds $3 to the home or business’ monthly utility bill for each block purchased. What makes TEP’s program unique? It’s allowing homeowners to lock in a fixed price for their solar energy blocks, which could save them money if the price of conventional electricity goes up in the future.

Keep in mind there’s really no way to make sure that your home is using clean energy when you pay this extra fee. There’s only a single power line, so how do you get the green energy and others don’t? Here’s the deal. The power you’re getting isn’t any different from that of your neighbor’s. The “green tags” are like certificates that subsidize the cost of adding clean power generation. So the more “green tags” purchased, the more clean energy the utility can add to its grid.

Earlier this week, Tucson Electric Power (TEP) — the utility service provider for nearly 400,000 customers in southern Arizona — completed a new 1.6-megawatt (MW) solar installation at the University of Arizona’s Science and Technology Park in southeast Tucson. Today, the utility is using its new solar source as an opportunity to offer its customers a new way to purchase solar power.

Starting February 1, TEP will let customers buy the clean energy directly from the utility company in blocks of 150 kilowatt-hours (kWh) as part of its new Bright Tucson Community Solar Program. To get a better sense of how much energy that is, two average refrigerators can run on 150 kWh of energy for an entire month. For each block purchased, the utility will add  $3 to the customer’s utility bill. As far as we know, there is no limit on how many blocks of energy a customer can purchase, so a TEP customer can buy all of their energy directly from TEP.

When TEP first announced the forming of the new program way back in July 2010, it said that six, 15o-kWh blocks each month would be enough to power an average household for an entire year. So do the math. That’s $18 a month and $216 each year. It may cost a little more now than conventional fuel sources, but the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) is letting customers lock into this $18 per month fixed rate for 20 years. So the price you pay for energy won’t fluctuate for the next two decades.

The new system is the largest solar source TEP has installed locally, but that probably won’t be the case for long. Chairman, President and CEO of TEP Paul Bonavia has already said publicly that larger systems are on their way:

“This system is the first of more than a dozen local solar projects that will be built over the next few years to help us take full advantage of southern Arizona’s most abundant renewable energy resource.”

All told, TEP plans to invest $28 million this year in solar projects and has already proposed similar investments for three more years in order to meet a state mandate that requires all utilities to add more solar to their portfolios each year until they reach 15 percent by 2025.  Translation: There’s going to be a lot more blocks available in the future.

Tuesday brought good news for California in terms of meeting a 2020 goal of getting a third of the state’s electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind.

After a short period of debate, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved two San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) contracts to purchase more solar energy in the next two to three years. SDG&E is one of California’s three main investor owned utilities (IOUs), serving millions of residential and commercial energy customers throughout southern California.

The two, 20-year power purchasing agreements (PPAs) entail SDG&E buying just under 300 gigawatt-hours of solar energy each year from the Centinela solar project — a $500 million, 130-megawatt (MW), solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant to be built in Calexico, California, just east of San Diego. The  Solar Home and Business Journal says SDG&E should start receiving power from the plant in 2014.

SDG&E is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy, which is in the process of building the 600 MW Mesquite Solar Plant roughly 40 miles west of Phoenix, Arizona. When it’s completed,  Sempra plans to use a high-voltage transmission line to carry that solar power from the Imperial Valley to the San Diego metropolitan area.

There’s another factor at play that’s causing these big moves by SDG&E: the state’s big three IOUs are required to get 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources by the end of the 2011 calendar year. And even though none of them is going to meet the mandate, SDG&E is in last place. By the end of the year, it expects to get only 14 percent of its energy from clean sources.

The two most recent agreements will certainly help SDG&E. But things almost never work as smoothly as they sound when it comes to building plants and transporting energy – just ask Brightsource Energy, developer  of the Ivanpah solar project. The transmission line needed to carry energy to San Diego — called Sunrise Powerlink — has yet to be built. And all indications Sempra is going to have one heck of a time getting it built. Why? Even though the CPUC and federal bureau of land management (BLM) have signed off on the $1.9 billion, 120-mile line, it can’t be built until the Cleveland National Forest OK’s the line running through its land. SDG&E has been waiting for a decision from the group for over a year. Facing a tight timeline, the utility has vowed to begin building the line next month and is working to secure the land for construction.

The siting of transmission lines — which can span hundreds of miles and cross the land of countless property owners — is a classically contentious process. Disagreements over property rights and land use issues abound. On Friday, several groups filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service and number of federal officials, calling Sunrise Powerlink a “hastily conceived, poorly studied, wildfire inducing and completely unnecessary transmission line.”

Let’s hope California utilities and opposition groups can get along so the state can continue leading the country in clean energy generation.

Western Massachusetts is preparing for its next big solar energy plant. This after the Western Massachusetts Electric Company (WMECo) — which serves over 200,000 commercial and residential electric utility customers in the Bay State — yesterday announced its plan to build a 4.2-megawatt (MW) solar facility in Springfield, Massachusetts.

WMECo’s latest project announcement comes just two months after the utility completed its first solar plant in nearby Pittsfield, Massachusetts. That plant is listed at 1.8 MW of solar capacity and is currently the largest of its kind in New England. Upon its completion, WMECo had indicated a similar facility will soon follow — and now, here it is.

In announcing the utility’s newest project, WMECo President and CEO Peter J. Clarke  spoke with WWLP News about what he hopes to accomplish with the solar plants:

“The Springfield facility continues to build on the experience we gained in developing our recently completed project in Pittsfield. Our approach enables us to deliver large scale solar at a level of cost effectiveness that no one would have thought possible a few short years ago.”

The newest Springfield solar plant will be built atop a capped landfill and will be more than double the size of the region’s current largest solar plant. It will include 17,000 solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. By comparison, the Pittsfield Plant is 6,500 PV panels. The new project will also spur $22 million of construction in the city (which means new, clean-energy construction jobs are coming soon) and generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue. Pittsfield is already benefiting from its plant that will generate an estimated $150,000 of additional tax revenue.

Both plants will play a  pivotal role in the state’s goal of installing 250 MW of solar energy capacity by 2017.

Last week, we featured an on-going discussion about solar costs in Florida, where lawmakers are considering adding a small surcharge on monthly electric bills to boost the amount of renewable energy deployed in the state. Today, we switch coasts to northern California’s San Joaquin Valley, where utility companies and renewable energy development firms are racing to meet the state’s renewable energy mandate while at the same time butting heads over the cost of renewable power.

There’s little doubt that installing a solar energy system is good for the environment. Such systems reduce our reliance on dirty fuels like coal. Moreover, over the course of their useful life, they generate more energy than what’s used to manufacture them. And, once you pay for the supplies and installation, the energy is free.

But the cost of solar energy is still not low enough to compete in price with fossil fuels. And without government support — like the 30 percent federal tax credit and additional solar rebates and other incentives from state governments — solar power isn yet cost effective.

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“How much are you willing to pay for solar energy?” It’s a question that’s sure to pit two important priorities against once another: environmental stewardship versus our checkbooks. Let the battle begin.

Keep in mind that, when it comes to installing solar energy systems to power our own property, the question has already been answered. With the right incentive programs in place and the immediate returns on utility bills, people have been willing to finance solar energy systems that will cost them, in the end, $10,000 and above. The grey area is how much people are willing to pay for utility companies to buy more solar energy, and for solar manufacturing companies to develop more efficient solar panels.

The answer to this question is likely to come out of Florida, where state legislatures are throwing around ideas that include utility customers paying more for solar energy. So far, House Bill 7229 has garnered the most support out of any such measures. Currently, utilities can charge their customers for the utility purchasing up to 110 megawatts (MW) of solar energy. HB 7229 would have lifted that cap and allowed utilities to charge customers for the cost of developing renewable energy, plus an extra profit margin. But during the 2010 regular session, the bill passed the house only to be defeated in the senate.

Supporters of such a measure, like Florida Senate President Mike Haridolopos, use a Florida TaxWatch study to back their idea. Florida TaxWatch is an independent economic research group. The study indicates that Florida residents are willing to pay an extra $1 every month to support solar energy development, like new solar plants and other renewable energy projects. Moreover, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory says that 95,000 new clean energy jobs could be created in Florida if the state were to push for another 1,500 MW of solar energy production.

But, as is usually the case, there is an alternative solution being proposed that does not include a spike in utility bills. Florida Senator Mike Bennett has introduced a bill that would allow utility customers to sell their excess energy back to utilities, like FPL, at the same rate that FPL charges customers for clean energy. So, in effect, you would have an ever-flowing stream of money and clean energy between utility companies and their customers. As it stands today, utility companies only pay their customers the amount of money the utility is saving by not having to develop the clean energy that the customer is feeding them. And like HB 7229, Bennett’s bill would also develop what the Florida Independent calls a “public benefits fund” for renewable energy projects by charging customers an extra 25 cents per month instead of a dollar.

So tell us: As a home or business owner, which proposal do you support? And how much more are you willing to pay per month in order for your utility company to have a higher clean energy supply?

A new law in Maryland scheduled to take effect on January 1st will require state utility companies to purchase more electricity generated from solar energy resources sooner than originally scheduled.

Customers will at first pay a bit more each month on their utility bills. Homeowners can expect to see a 5 cent per month increase. Bigger consumers of power, meanwhile, will see an increase of about 66 cents each month.

The law will also help create jobs within the state. After all, more solar power to the utility companies means more solar facilities in the state. And those facilities will need workers in order to function smoothly.

The added solar energy to the state’s utility grid will also help lay the foundation for a cleaner energy future, as electricity consumption is growing in Maryland at 2.7 percent each year — 25 percent higher than the national average. Of the 50 states, Maryland ranks 41st in total energy consumption per capita and 30th in the average annual increase in total energy consumption.

Because of the new law, Maryland’s timetable for meeting its renewable energy standard will be moved up. In April 2008, Maryland required 20 percent of its total electricity to come from renewable sources by 2022, with two percent of that amount coming from solar energy sources.